Emerging population of gap-opening planets around type-A stars

Abstract

Context. The presence of forming planets embedded in their protoplanetary disks has been inferred from the detection of multiring structures in such disks. Most of these suspected planets are undetectable by direct imaging observations at current measurement sensitivities. Inward migration and accretion might make these putative planets accessible to the Doppler method, but the actual extent of growth and orbital evolution remains unconstrained. Aims. Under the premise that the gaps in the disk around HD 163296 originate from new-born planets, we investigate if and under which circumstances the gap-opening planets could represent progenitors of the exoplanet population detected around A-type stars. In particular, we study the dependence of final planetary masses and orbital parameters on the viscosity of the disk. Methods. The evolution of the embedded planets was simulated throughout the disk lifetime and up to 100 Myr after the dispersal of the disk, taking the evolving disk structure and a likely range of disk lifetimes into account. We modeled the temperature and density structure of the disk based on observational results following the widely used α disk prescription and we varied planetary and disk parameters within the available observational constraints. Results. We find that the final configuration of the planets is largely determined by the α viscosity parameter of the disk and less dependent on the choice for the disk lifetime and the initial planetary parameters. If we assume that planets such as those in HD 163296 evolve to form the observed exoplanet population of A-type stars, a α parameter on the order of 3.16 × 10−4 ≲ α ≲ 10−3 is required for the disks to induce sufficiently high migration rates. Depending on whether or not future direct imaging surveys will uncover a larger number of planets with mpl ≲ 3 MJup and apl ≳ 10 AU, we expect the α parameter to be at the lower or upper end of this range, always under the assumption that such disks indeed harbor wide orbit planets.